To Bise or Not To Bise?

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You might ask yourself what these bises are and why I'm so concerned about them, anyways. In France, as well as in the Suisse Romande to fair la bise is a synonym for cheek-kissing, a mainly European custom that gets very complicated when someone french is involved. 

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To fair la bise generally involves touching cheeks while kissing the air with an audible smack of the lips. That's the easy part. Now the real question is: 

Who to kiss and who not to kiss? And then again, how many of these bises shall you give? 

There are no written rules - which will lead to many awkward situations. While in Paris people give 2 bises, in some suburbs it's 4 and in other areas in France 3 (the same as in Switzerland). This can already lead to a lot of confusion - if a swiss and a parisian meet: how much kissing would there be involved? I've often landed in this kind of situation - the last time last week at a meeting with a parisian banker I had been talking on the phone with for months, but had never met before personally. Since I felt as if I knew him forever, I leaned up to faire la bise, and noticed how he was confused about the situation, but followed my spontaneity to avoid by total embarrassment. 

Commonly, women can kiss each other in almost any circumstance (it get's tricky if you greet elderly people for the first time or if it's a business meeting - oops!). Men, otherwise, only will kiss other men if they are related or are two best friends who haven't seen each other in centuries. An exception to this is New Year's Eve - where everybody seems to get loose (probably a consequence of the all the vin rouge). 

As a general guideline, I would say - wait until you are approached instead of jumping into it, like I did - and still do... got to change that one. 

Have you ever been in one of these awkward situations? How do you know when and whom to kiss?